Singapore 2014: Chinatown Complex Hawker Stands
- Planning a Singapore/Malaysia/Hong Kong Mileage Run Marathon
- National Museum of Singapore and Art Museum
- Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo
- Bicycle Tour of Sentosa Island and Adventure Cove Waterpark
Basement: Grocery store (fresh vegetables, seafood, dry goods)
First floor: Shops (clothing, shoes, some souvenirs)
Second floor: Food stands
- Coffee and tea shop
- They sell kaya toast, eggs, etc
- Different stands give you different sizes. If you have it there in cup, its much less than what you get for take-away or take out, even though you have to pay an extra 10 cents for take out.
- Fresh juice stand
- Most popular is the sugar cane juice, which is squeezed straight from the sugar cane. They sell it in many shops in Hong kong but didn’t see it at many shops here in Singapore. There were a few, mainly in the Chinatown area.
- Blended fruit stand (smoothies)
- Beer and soda stands (that sometimes also sells coffee and tea)
- Vegetarian dish stands
- Porridge Stand
- Stand just for fried dough
- It goes with the porridge. I only saw one shop selling this, which was a bit weird. There were a few porridge places there but I don’t think any of them sold the fried dough that usually accompanies porridge. I would expect this shop to be really busy because they were the only ones selling it.
- Hainanese Chicken (also called chicken rice)
- Soy sauce chicken/roasted duck/roasted pork stands (some of them sell it with noodles and also wonton noodle soup)
- Soy sauce chicken to be the most popular dish at these restaurants.
- They sell a whole chicken, half chicken (cut up)
- The soy sauce chicken is prepared in a large pot. Many small chickens are put in it and then cooked for a long time.
- Soy bean drink/pudding stands
- Dessert stands (mango sago, red bean, peanut, etc)
- Steamed noodle shop (bee hoon)
- Also sell taro/radish cakes
- Dim sum stand
- Fish cake/ball noodle shop
- Some of these shops also sell laksa, which is a red spicy seafood noodle soup. The one I had was very good, similar to Tom Yum noodle soup but with a bit of milk in it. The milk smoothes out the flavors of the soup.
- Steamed fish/fish head shops
- Fried flat noodle shop (only found one shop dedicated to it. The vegetarian shop also sells it)
- Pancake shop
- Seafood stand (lobster, prawn, crawfish, crab)
- I only saw one of these shops. There are a few more in the nearby Chinatown area
- Taro/raddish cakes stands
I know that I’m probably missing a few shops as there were a few that I wasn’t interested in. As I stayed near there, I only went in the morning and at night. I spent most of my there during the mornings so only 1/4 of the shops were open.
Here is the directory of the 2nd floor food stands:
All the shops are open for lunch and early dinner. Most of the shops close at 9pm. The best time to go would be around 8pm as the crowds die down. During lunch, it was insane. I went at 1pm and it was still very crowded. It was much more calm at 8pm. I’ve been here a few times at 10pm and surprisingly some shops are still open, like the dessert places and beer place.
It may be a bit hard to see, but I think this was the most crowded Soya Chicken place in the complex. It was very good.
The most popular chicken rice place here was Heng Ji Chicken Rice. I thought it was really good but haven’t tried any place in Singapore. PointsSummary noted that he found a place in Geylang (yep he was being really specific here) that was really good.
I was a bit surprised, but Ah Ling Cooked Food was one of the only places that sold fried bee hoon (soy sauce fried wide noodles).
I did manage to find another place that sold it. It was already pre-made and it tasted ok. I would’ve loved to try out the place pictured above but I was too full to have another.
